New smoking laws: Motsoaledi declares war on tobacco industry

A lot is about to change if the Department of Health gets its way.

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA  FEBRUARY 01: Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi during a media briefing by the Health Ombudsman to announce the final report on the Life Esidimeni psychiatric patients deaths on February 01, 2017 in Pretoria, South Africa. The report into the deaths of psychiatric patients transferred from Life Esidimeni healthcare revealed that 94 patients died and not 36 as recorded by the Gauteng Health Department. Health MEC; Qedani Mahlangu announced her resignation following the tragic incidents. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sowetan / Sandile Ndlovu)

The Department of Health has been on a bid to introduce stricter smoking laws but, according to Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, they have had to stay a step ahead of the tobacco industry, which has always managed to find a way to bypass new laws.

Officials have proposed new laws, which include basically driving “smoking areas” inside pubs and restaurants to extinction, as well a rule that will prohibit smoking anywhere within 10 metres of a public building.

The health minister was speaking to news channel eNCA on Thursday – which also happened to be World No Tobacco Day – where he elaborated on the tussle between his department and the tobacco industry.

“Every year you pass a law, industry tries to find a way to side-step it,” He said.

“For instance, when the anti-smoking legislation was passed, there were no e-cigarettes. Now they came up with e-cigarettes, which are supposed to be, according to them, not delivering nicotine but we know most of them do.

“We discovered that young people start smoking through e-cigarettes… as part of the new legislation… we are also including e-cigarettes as a cigarette.

“We have discovered a gap where – on cigarette packets, it’s written not to be sold to under 18s. But there are vending machines all over that don’t recognise age just money so we are going to ban vending machines all over.”

Here are some of the proposed smoking laws

Smokers may be right to feel they are being driven to the ocean or, in this case, straight to traffic, as one of the key laws that stands to be introduced is one that prohibits smoking within 10 metres of a public building.

Not only would stores be asked to stop displaying packs of cigarettes in view of customers, but the packaging itself would be totally plain on all name brands.

Restaurants are also set to be free of any sort of fog, as the Control of Tobacco and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill might ban designated smoking areas.

As the good minister mentioned, vending machine cannot detect age, hence his department wants to do away with them completely, as a means to eliminate selling cigarettes to minors.

Officials are also bidding to introduce more stringent e-cigarette regulations.